


Doubt truth to be a liar (But never doubt I love)

by mystarsandmyocean



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Hallucinations, Psychological Torture, Season 3 AU, Slade's Revenge, The Non-Misogynistic One
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 15:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2197188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystarsandmyocean/pseuds/mystarsandmyocean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Slade, the cure changes both everything and nothing:</p>
<p>"I'm going to tear everything he cares about away from him. Destroy his choice in followers. Corrupt his love. Once he has lost everyone and everything he values, only then will I let him see the truth."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doubt truth to be a liar (But never doubt I love)

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This story is meant to explore/deconstruct several plot bunnies and tropes – one, refocusing Slade’s revenge to his and Oliver’s relationship, as opposed to Slade’s misogyny/Shado-fueled spiral; two, I want to explore exactly what Slade meant when he said he still hated Oliver – even without the mirakuru – and try to figure out exactly what the mirakuru does to the injected individual, which meant trying to make sense of Roy and Slade’s arcs post-injection. Obviously, y’all know me well enough to know this will have angst galore and this will get dark before it gets better, but enjoy nonetheless?

The choice. 

 

It always comes back to this. 

 

He’s bleeding out on the carpet floor.  Felicity’s wrapped in Slade’s arms, bloody sword pressed to her throat. 

 

His nightmares, brought to life.   

 

“You had a choice –” Slade snarls, his face twisted. 

 

His friend, forever, no longer.    

 

“I told you, I told Ivo to choose me, to kill me; please, Slade, _please_ –”

 

“That’s not the choice I mean, kid.”

 

Isn’t it, though?

 

\---

 

_that morning_

 

For so many years, all he wanted was to leave the island. How times have changed.

 

Not that he missed the torture, the uncertainty, the steady scraping away of his soul – his father, Yao Fei, Shado, Slade, Sara. But the last time he was there, firmly planted on the beach, the world had felt solid beneath his feet and Felicity and Diggle had stood by his side.

 

She had called him a hero, and he had felt like one.

 

Her opinion of him was not quite so high now.

 

"Oliver," Felicity sighed, spinning back round in her chair, "we've gone over this. I went to MIT, not to work as an assistant, let alone at a club. Not that Verdant isn't a nice club – though really the green isn't exactly subtle –"

 

Oliver tried and failed to suppress the twitch of his lips; Felicity flushed.

 

"– that isn't the point, the point is that I already have a job which I am qualified for and we've already worked out a system for our nighttime activities, so we're not discussing this again." Her cheeks burned hotter. "More than we already are."

 

The last time they had this argument, she had invaded his space, a brilliant flash of heat and color. Now, she slumped in her chair and waited – certain – for him to agree with her logic. He wasn’t sure he liked the change.

 

He was certain he didn’t like her argument. He had expected her to want to come back to him, to invest more time and energy shaping him into the hero he sometimes glimpsed in her eyes. But he couldn’t say anything otherwise without sounding like what he still feared he was - a damaged, irredeemable jerk.

 

"Felicity," he sighed, eyes softening as they followed the double-tap of her fingers on her palm. Her name held a multitude of meanings:

 

"You're right."

"I'm sorry."

"Come back anyways."

"I love you – I meant it; I always meant it."

"I am so, so scared of losing you."

 

As always, she only understood part of what he said.

 

\---

 

The fight forgiven, Felicity sauntered off to her day job – only five hours until the office opens, really Oliver, jobs outside of clubs keep 9-5 hours – and Oliver moved upstairs to the paperwork in his office.

 

For a man so transient, his entire life had become centered around this space: his club upstairs, newly reclaimed thanks to the _generosity_ of one Ray Palmer, his lair downstairs, a cot for him in both. Only one felt like home; it didn’t take a college degree to figure out why.

 

Felicity rolled his eyes when he said that, reminding the world of just another arena where he’s lacking. He hadn’t told her that in the months since Slade, he’s kept a copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare beneath his cot and each time she or Dig or even Sarah, on her sporadic visits, had mentioned another part of their quintessential college education, he’s added another marker to The List. The name of The List changed, depending on the day and his mood:

 

\- References To Catch Up On

\- Reasons He is the Dumbest Person in Any Given Room

\- Ways His Friends Continue to Surprise Him

\- Just Another Thing He Missed on the Island (or While He Was Throwing His Life Away) – the particular nature of his melancholy went to the former for Felicity and Dig, the latter for Sarah and Laurel.

 

He has yet to figure out a way to casually drop his newfound knowledge of Hamlet into a conversation; jokes about his imminent tragic life were off the table (Now his nightmares include Sara walking into the ocean willingly, singing of fennel, columbines, and rue; him shoving Felicity away, straight into an enemy's sword; his mother, blood staining her lips and death on her brow).

 

He sighed, account numbers and estimates for liquor bottles swimming before his eyes – he’d never had a knack for the club management, hated it more than the CEO life, if possible.  It was lonelier, for certain, in spite of the patrons who would swarm the floor sixteen hours from now. Dig had stayed by his side, at least, now his Head of Security, but could never be heard over the music; Felicity spent her days as an IT specialist at Queen Consolidated, working directly with Ray Palmer, and her nights with him.

 

Well. Not with him. Not the way he wanted her – them – to spend them.

 

Not that he – or she – were ready to spend their nights that way. At least she didn’t seem to have any issues with their new post-Slade status quo, other than a newfound reluctance to spend _all_ her time with him. 

 

He couldn’t pretend it didn’t sting.  He had lost everything except for her and Dig; she, in the meanwhile, was gaining a life of her own, one separate from him. 

 

So yes, people surrounded him – groupies and bartenders and dancers by late afternoon and evening and his two closest friends in the darkest hours of the night, but here, now, with the sun spiking through his window, he felt more alone than ever.

 

Almost as if he was back on that island, the one he both did and didn’t miss.

 

\---

 

By late afternoon, the sun bathed his office entirely, chasing the shadows away.  The heat warmed his back, a reminder of his days on the island, when sunlight meant safety; it was only at night the monsters prowled.  His back ached, muscles sore from curling his frame onto the cot. He would be more embarrassed at how quickly he’s adapted to the luxuries of home, only to lose them once again; instead, he wished he could exchange the cot for a mattress, at the very least.  Logically, the mansion was another option, his home and club the only two estates now his both in name and possession. It was only his father's legacy that remained out of reach. But whenever he’s gone home, he’s seen:

 

Thea, all legs, shrieking and chasing him down the halls.

 

His mother, waiting for him and his father, then Walter, until Thea and he had taken her place: a widow’s walk in the making. 

 

Felicity in the foyer, the belief – the possibility – sputtering and dying in her gaze, his palm masking his words.

 

That house held only lies.

 

Felicity had offered him her guestroom. But to sleep there would have meant carrying lies, his legacy, into her home.  Rolling his neck, he contemplated the paperwork in front of him, hoping to calculate how many more months until he turns enough of a profit to afford a bed, let alone an apartment.   

 

The accounts still made little sense though – the cot, for now, it is. 

 

The ring of his phone pierced the air, as unnatural here as it would have been on the island ( _that_ he still hadn’t quite adapted to).  He accepted on the last ring, not bothering to check the ID – who else would be calling, other than Felicity or Dig?  Maybe Sara, if she was planning a visit soon. 

 

“Queen.”

 

He scowled, leaning back in his chair.  “Palmer.  To what do I owe the pleasure?”  Talking to his successor – at QC, hopefully not in Felicity’s affections – was never particularly _pleasurable_ , but this, at least, his mother had taught him well.  Maybe he had finally decided to abdicate and go back to his science and textbooks, leaving Oliver’s birthright where it belonged. 

 

“Is Felicity with you?” Palmer continued, voice irate.  “I know she spends her nights at your _club_ , but that’s no excuse for missing work –”

 

In through the mouth, out through the nose, he reminded himself.  They’d had a late night; she could have just overslept…

 

“Did you try her phone?” he asked, knocking aside his paperwork to check his laptop, typing in the passcode and instructions that would track it down for him. 

 

“No, I just decided to check in first with her former boss.”  He knew he wasn’t imagining the sarcasm in Palmer’s voice now.  “I’m assuming she’s not there then?”

 

The laptop dinged. 

 

_No results found_. 

 

“Queen?”  Palmer demanded. “Did she say anything to you?”

 

Felicity wouldn’t turn off her phone without good reason.  Felicity wouldn’t _disappear_ without good reason.  He entered the command again, the results pinging back even faster. 

 

_No results found.  Device untraceable._

 

“Queen!”

 

“I–” he stuttered, trying to remember exactly what time she’d left that morning, how long it had been since he’d heard from her. “I have to go.”

 

Hanging up on Palmer, he swiped past Felicity’s name, resolutely ignoring her picture, and clicked on Dig’s number.  Dig would know, if Felicity had made plans and had forgotten to tell him.  They were close, in ways he and Felicity were not, Dig would know, he just had to talk to –

 

“Oliver?”

 

“Dig,” he breathed into the phone, “Have you heard from Felicity today?”  He didn’t sound panicked at all; his voice still as the sea before the storm.

 

“Last time I saw her was with you, man.” That’s one of the things he loved best about John Diggle – no need for small talk or pleasantries, his friend knew when to get straight to business.  “Everything okay?”

 

“She didn’t show up to work today,” Oliver answered, watching his screen reflect the same results for the third time in a row. “Her phone isn’t – I can’t trace it.”

 

There was that tremor of fear.  His hands, he realized, were shaking.

 

Why hadn’t he just _told_ her?  So many reasons he’d asked her to stay and not one of them true.  Anger towards Palmer surged through him, irrational and stupid as it was.  She could have been _here_ , with him, not –

 

“I’ll talk to Lyla,” Dig promised, “I’m already by her place; I’ll check there and then come to the club.  Stay there, and see what you can do with her computers.”

 

He slipped his phone into his pocket, leaving his papers a mess on the floor behind him. None of them mattered, not while Felicity was – not gone, absent, temporarily _absent_ , that was all, like a day off from school.  (“I have perfect attendance,” she’d reminded him, those days he’d suggested she call in sick, after one too many hours tracking down criminals. “You can’t just take me home.  Not like, to _your_ home, my home, obviously…”).

 

He wished she’d just stayed.

 

\---

 

He spun when the door beeped open, her name falling from his lips even as he knew better.

 

“It’s me,” Diggle called back.  Before John had sounded calm, the voice of reason as always.  Now, Oliver detected – anger?  His stomach rolled. “Her car was there, but no sign of her.”

 

His feet thudding off the last steps, Dig’s face finally came into view, and Oliver reassessed his opinion.  Dig wasn’t angry; he was _furious._

Jumping to attention, Oliver pushed away from her computers – from which he’d gleaned absolutely nothing – and crossed to him, his thumb etching a familiar path.  “Dig?” his voice cracked. 

 

“A month after we locked him up, Waller put Slade Wilson on the Suicide Squid,” Dig bit out, “A month ago he went off plan and she terminated him.  Lyla – Lyla re-evaluated the report.  She thinks it was an escape attempt instead.”

 

_“You think I won’t get out of here?  You think I won’t kill those you care for?  I keep my promises, kid!”_

 

Oliver was vaguely aware of Dig’s arm clasped to his shoulder, calling his name in louder and louder tones, but his breath was locked in his lungs, his muscles frozen. 

 

“Oliver –”

 

He tore himself away from Dig, dialing that old, familiar number before he could change his mind.  She picked up on the second ring.  Like always.

 

“Mr. Queen, how many times do I need to tell you that this number is not for your personal use?”

 

“You let Slade Wilson out?” he growled, his fingers clenched round his phone. “We put him away, and you _let him out_? Without telling me?”

 

“It was a tactical decision.  Mr. Wilson had skill sets beneficial to A.R.G.U.S. and we had the means to keep him under control.”  As always, her voice dripped with superiority – she was so _sure_ in her rightness, he could strangle her.  “And while you’ve assisted A.R.G.U.S. in the past, you’re not exactly a neutral party, Oliver.”

 

“You had _no right._ ” 

 

“We had every right; he was in _our_ custody, not yours.”

 

He plowed past the warning in her tone; he had never heeded them before.  “And you _lost_ _him_.  And now he’s – ”

 

Grinding his jaw, he pulled short of shouting.  He wouldn’t cross that line; he couldn’t contemplate where Slade was, what he could be doing.  It was _unthinkable_. 

 

Amanda sighed into the phone, and for a moment, Oliver remembered the woman who’d offered the answers to his father’s book, all in exchange for his skills and loyalty.  A deal with the devil, then, as would be any bargain he made now.  “We may have a lead on him,” she cautioned.  “I’ll expect a favor in the future, of course; this information ought to stay within A.R.G.U.S.”

 

“Amanda,” he ground out.  She had him, and she knew it. 

 

“He left a message on his cell walls,” she continued, “the same phrase, from a book he’d specifically requested.  The Oydssey?”

 

The air held still around him. “What did it say?”

 

“Don’t stay too long away from home, leaving your treasure there.”

 

He hung up the phone, slipping it back into his pocket.  Dig matched his gaze, the anger reigned back, determined once again.

 

“I know where she is.”

 

\---

 

It’s been months since he’s stepped foot inside the Queen mansion.  He stopped by, once, after the island, to pick up clothes and other mementos of his mother’s – plus wine, from the cellar, for Felicity – but since then, he’s avoided his childhood home. 

 

He’d never quite noticed how it looms, dark wood and heavy beams, before now.

 

Dig was waiting at the foot of the driveway, phone, gun, and medical kit at the ready.  Oliver knew Slade, knew how he would want this to go down.  They couldn’t risk his anger, not until Felicity was safe. 

 

The door slammed shut behind him, weighed down even without his hand.  Despite the setting sun outside, darkness swathed the room, the curtains drawn. 

 

Slade had never liked the dramatics, not before the Mirakuru.  Just another piece of his friend, lost and gone, not buried, like he’d hoped, before the cure had taken hold. 

 

So many people had come back from the dead, as of late; had it been wrong to hope for friends instead of enemies?

 

Stepping forward into the foyer, he squinted against the lack of light, letting his eyes adjust.  There was no one here, not that he could see; the chance of being wrong sunk in his stomach –

 

_There_.  A lump, draped across the floor in front of the fireplace, large and still, just the right size for –

 

“Felicity?” he called out, striding forward, his heart picking up speed, “Felicity?”

 

She didn’t move when he turned her over, her face ashen; his breath quickened, his focus narrowing to her; he needed a pulse, to see if she was breathing, god, she had to be _breathing_ , please, please, let her be –

 

The slice of steel on skin slipped through the air. 

 

The pain didn’t register.  Not at first.

 

He sucked in a breath, his fingers still pressed to Felicity’s neck, but it _burned_.  Looking down, he saw why, the sword cutting through his abdomen, a wound to match his mother’s.    

 

Slade pulled his sword away, the blade snicking blood across his mother’s once-pristine carpets.  He slumped to the side, struggling to breath, to talk, to _think_ against the pain searing his body. 

 

So this was what dying felt like. 

 

His fingers grasped for Felicity’s face, smearing blood across her cheek, just as her eyes fluttered open.  Good, he thought, stroking her skin with his thumb, not dead, just drugged. 

 

Felicity should never feel like he did now. 

 

She wretched back from his hand, eyes wide and panicked, squirming against the ropes binding her hands and feet.  He wanted to tell her it was okay, she was safe, Slade wouldn’t hurt her if he was dead, but blood trapped the words in his throat; he coughed, copper on his tongue, instead. 

 

He reached for her again, but she pulled further away, up and away into the air.  He blinked, thoughts coming slow –

 

_No._ No. 

 

This was supposed to end with him. 

 

“Slade, _no_ – ” he rasped, propping himself to his knees, one hand pressed to his abdomen.  “You have what you want, let her _go_.”

 

Slade hitched Felicity higher, bloody blade pressed to her throat.  “What I want, kid, is for you to make a choice.”

 

Always, always the damn _choice_. 

 

Laughter bubbled to his lips, tears crowding his vision.  “There isn’t a choice to make – ”

 

There never was, with Felicity, with him.  He knew what he would do every time.

 

“You had a choice –” Slade snarled, his face twisted. 

 

His friend, forever, no longer. He was foolish to think otherwise.  

 

“I told you, I told Ivo to choose me, to kill me; please, Slade, _please_ –”

 

“That’s not the choice I mean, kid.”

 

What other choice is there?  He slumped forward, arm still pressed against his stomach, kneeling, beseeching at his friend – his _enemy’s_ feet.

 

"I made the choice to come for you that day.  A suicide mission."  Slade sneered, eyes flat.  "Do you remember?  I saved one brother and killed another."

 

Of course he remembered that day.  He’d thought he’d learned loyalty then.  Only to have that resolve tested over and over, battered and beaten and ran down until that night on the Amazo, when he’d had another choice to make:

 

Kill or cure.

  

"You can save her," Slade offered, dragging Felicity back; Oliver dragged himself back to his knees in turn, ignoring waves of dizziness and pain. "But only if you live.  Because I promise,  _brother_ , your death only leads to hers.”

 

Releasing the hand not holding his sword, Slade dropped a syringe to the floor, the glass clinking as it rolled towards him, the liquid inside glowing green. 

 

"You said Ivo didn’t give you a choice," he scoffed, taking another step back, then another, "Well, kid, here’s an easy one.  Live - or  _die_.”

 

Oliver lunged forward, but blood loss had made him dizzy and weak, the ground crashing into him instead of Slade.  

 

When he looked up, Slade and Felicity had vanished.  

 

He plunged the needle into his arm.

 

The Mirakuru burned through his veins. 


End file.
